ddmsrealm-ddo-disciples-shar-campThe next expansion for the Dungeons and Dragons Online has gone live. This game expansion is considered Update 19 thought the content is considered a full blown expansion and not just an update to Dungeons and Dragons Online. This time players will venture to the prison city of Wheloon and explore the strange mysteries there. The Shadowfel, an alternate plane of existence that runs parallel to the normal material plane, is being manipulated to the evil designs of Shar. Explore this new Dungeons and Dragons Online expansion/update now!

Here are the nitty gritty details and release notes!

News & Notes

This update brings a new Expansion pack, as well as changes and additions to the DDO game for players of all account types. Read on for details!

Of Special Note

Shadowfell Conspiracy

An unnatural darkness looms over the prison city of Wheloon as shadows spread across the land. Uncover the sinister Shar plot threatening to destroy Cormyr from within, and face the full might of the Empire of Netheril in the all new Dungeons & Dragons Online™ Expansion: Shadowfell Conspiracy! Includes:

Two New Forgotten Realms Adventure Packs

Wheloon City

Take to the sprawling city streets and rooftops of Wheloon as you hunt down Netherese agents seeking to forge an army. A shadowy maze where even the Purple Dragon Knights will not tread, the public area and new dungeons of this prison city will put you to the test!

The Storm Horns

Journey to the breathtaking and treacherous Storm Horn Mountains where, beneath the natural beauty, hides a dark alliance that threatens all of Cormyr. Explore a massive, new wilderness area as you ascend the towering peaks and confront the agents of shadow!

Iconic Heroes

Wield the power of all-new prestige characters including the Shadar-kai Assassin, Sun elf Morninglord, and Purple Dragon Knight! These unique characters start in Forgotten Realms at level 15 and feature exclusive skills and appearances.

  • There are currently four Iconic Hero types available:
    • Purple Dragon Knight Iconic Hero: A stalwart Fighter, cut loose from active service, who can lead the charge with rallying battle-cries.
    • Shadar-kai Iconic Hero: A lethal Rogue who has thrown off the Netherese yoke and draws on innate powers of the Shadowfell to hide and to kill.
    • Morninglord Iconic Hero: A battle-ready Cleric of the great sun-god who wields holy light against the dark in all its wicked forms.
    • Bladeforged Iconic Hero: An exotic warforged Paladin follower of the Lord of Blades wrought from the infamous Creation Forge.
  • Iconic Heroes are available based on your purchase of the Shadowfell Conspiracy as follows:
    • If you ordered the Standard Edition of Shadowfell Conspiracy, you will be able to access the Purple Dragon Knight.
    • If you ordered the Collector’s Edition of Shadowfell Conspiracy, you will be able to access the Shadar-Kai Assassin, Sun Elf Morninglord, and Purple Dragon Knight.
    • If you pre-purchased any edition of the Shadowfell Conspiracy, you will be able to access the Bladefordged.
  • Iconics do not begin their life on the beach with Jeets. Bladeforged begin their existance in the Creation Forge with the Lord of Blades, while Forgotten Realms based Iconics start their journey in the Wheloon tavern with Elminster. You may speak with Elminster (or the Lord of Blades) to receive your character experience points and advance on a per-determined path for your abilities.
    • You may elect to decline the pre-set path offered by Elminster/The Lord of Blades. You may leave the Ball & Chain Tavern (or Creation Forge) to seek out other class trainers if you would like to multiclass or otherwise customize the character ability options of your Iconic Hero.
    • Note that Forgotten Realms Iconics can not take Eberron-lore specific feats (i.e. Dragonmarks and Eberron Deity based feats)

Introducing Sagas

  • Earn rewards with our new Saga system! New NPCs have arrived to chronicle the deeds of heroes across multiple story arcs and adventure packs. By completing all of the quests in a given Saga, you can speak with the Saga NPC to claim an extra reward, including a large one-time experience point grant, guild renown, and more! The quality of the rewards can also be influenced by running the quests on higher difficulty levels.
  • There are currently two Sagas available
    • Honor of the Huntsilver – this Epic level saga is tracked by Belvedere Huntsilver in Eveningstar (South of the Eveningstar Well.)
    • Menace of the Underdark – this saga is tracked by Lady Azana Winter in Eveningstar (South of The Lonesome Tankard).
  • You do not need to speak with the Saga NPCs first, credit for a Saga is automatically logged as you complete quests. Please note that quest completions that occurred prior to the launch of Update 19 are not able to be counted by the NPCs. The Saga NPCs will list the quests necessary to complete their Saga. Quests that qualify for the Saga can be played in any order, and are counted automatically; you do not need to speak to Saga NPCs to start the Saga nor return to the NPC between quest completions. You only need to speak to the Saga NPC once you have completed all quests in a Saga to receive your reward.
  • It is possible to use Astral Shards to get credit for a particular quest for Saga purposes rather than re-running it. VIPs start out with a free credit for the quest of their choice. Getting credit for the quest does not grant quest completion/favor/rewards for that quest, it only allows the Saga NPC to check the quest off their tracking list.

The Enhancements System Revamp

The DDO Enhancements system has been updated! These changes are free to all players.

  • The Enhancement system view has been reworked into a tree format. It is now easier to see the long term options for your race/class so you can plan your character build customizations! Each race has an associated tree, and each class has multiple trees to pick from! We will be adding even more trees to classes in the future.
    • You may have 6 class trees and 1 Racial for a total of 7 trees to distribute your action points among.
    • You can re-arrange your enhancement trees by clicking on the drop-down box near the bottom of the trees. The “Unset” panel is available so you can select the order you prefer your trees to display in.
    • The first Core Enhancement is Required to take the first Enhancement of a particular tree
    • You can only take tier 5 abilities in one class tree
  • Many existing prestige enhancement lines have been updated or had abilities reworked.
  • The Enhancement System Revamp includes many updates and changes. Therefore, every character that exists prior to Update 19 will receive a +20 Lesser Reincarnation TOKEN upon login automatically to allow players to make adjustments to their existing characters if necessarily. To redeem this token:
  1. Visit Kruz the Reincarnation trainer in House Jorasco and select “What do I need to start Lesser Reincarnation?”
  2. Then select “I would like to use a heart of wood to reincarnate, but give me specific details before we begin.”
  3. NOTE that this is NOT considered to be the standard Free Lesser Reincarnation, so you need to select the second available Lesser Reincarnation option!
  4. Double check that the last sentence states that “You will turn in your +20 Lesser Heart of Wood in order to start this process” before you click on “Yes.”
  5. NOTE: The current three-class restriction that applies to other Hearts of Wood apply to the +20 Lesser Heart of Wood. Characters can never have more than three classes during the respec process, even if they intended to have only three classes by the end of the process. This means that some multiclass characters may be unable to swap out one class for another, unless they use a second Heart of Wood in the future to swap out an unwanted class for a desired class.
  • Character level requirements for racial Core Enhancements are now: 1, 4, 7, 11, 16
  • Action Boost: Save Boosts no longer fail on rolls of a 1.
  • Uncaring Masters should no longer be told how much they care.

The Hall of Heroes

A new option is available for quick travel between the realms of Eberron and Forgotten Realms. This account-wide feature will allow you to log to the character selection screen, and switch your character to the Eberron or Forgotten Realms campaign settings with the push of a button. Doing so will transport your character to the Eberron Hall of Heroes, or the Forgotten Realms Hall of Heroes. These travel hubs exist outside of the story and contain doorways to many locations in the respective worlds. Over time more locations will be added to the hall.

Level Cap Increase to 28

Raise your character to new heights of power with a host of new epic spells and feats! Free to all players.

Stealth System Updates

We have comprehensively looked at stealth, invisibility, detection, blind attacks, noises, and the visual or audio feedback from all of these systems. Major work has been done to monster AI as well as player avatar and ability behaviors to improve the opportunity for characters to successfully use stealth in the game.

Changes are as follows:

  • Performance improvements have been made that significantly reduce AI-related lag and frame rate issues, especially in large group and raid situations.
  • The game is now much better at determining when you are in or out of combat, so that you don’t appear to stand there idly while getting clubbed over the head by attackers.
  • Combat animations and avatar behaviors have been adjusted. It is now possible to perform some actions while being stealthy that you previously could not (such as tumbling or jumping.) The previous ability to jump while stealthed was horribly overpowered, and has been summarily nerfed.
  • Monsters now display a question mark icon whenever they are investigating a suspicious noise, instead of performing a search animation while walking, which made it appear as if they had “sliding feet.”
  • Monsters who can see a player despite hide or invisibility will now display an icon over their head to let the player know they have been seen! Situations where this occurs can include:
    1. You are invisible but the monster has True Seeing, See Invisibility, tremor-sense, or is within 2 meters and facing you.
    2. You are hiding, but the monster’s spot plus all modifiers is sufficient to beat your hiding skill plus all modifiers, or you are within 2 meters and it is facing you.
    3. You are hiding AND invisible, but some combination of both 1 and 2 are true.
    4. If they are swinging and hitting you but don’t have the icon over their head, they are making blind attacks where they hear you making noise, and you’re making so much running around and getting hit that they can figure out where you are.
  • To better help players understand when they are making noise:
    • Sneaking players have always made red footsteps when they were making noise, but now players who are invisible will display “hot footsteps” to indicate when a monster can hear them as well. This is only a visual change – they could always hear you when you were running around while invisible…
    • White footsteps that indicate you are approaching a monster who might hear you if you get closer will still play only if sneaking.
    • All red footsteps now only play when a monster actually hears you. If you see the red splash, your position has been given away! It used to play any time you might be heard, but weren’t necessarily actually being heard. The footstep will also be darker and redder the more monsters hear you!
  • Monsters will display a red ear with an exclamation mark whenever they hear you make a loud noise, such as when you are hit.
  • Fixed a number of bugs, and re-wrote blind attack and search AI, to allow players to escape monsters when using stealth:
    • Fixed a bug where monsters would re-evaluate their target’s position every time another monster’s missile attack hit anything, giving the monster better awareness of a player’s location than they should. This will now only happen when a character makes the noise.
    • Fixed a bug where monsters would cheat and get their target’s location every 6 seconds or less.
    • Fixed a bug where being both stealthed and invisible was worse than just being invisible at ranges greater that 7.5 meters.
    • Search attack algorithms have been improved. Monsters will expand their search radius when making blind attacks, hate the target less after a few missed attacks, and eventually give up after a number of fruitless attacks where they are unable to hit anything.
      • If a monster manages to get a relevant clue as to their enemy’s whereabouts, they will resume their search.
    • Monsters should no longer shoot projectiles directly at targets that they can’t see!
  • Added icon feedback to highlight increased monster spot bonuses over the length of time that a character hides or sneaks in front of them.
    • This comes in three levels, based on distance. The color and number of eyes that blink over the monster’s head indicates how fast their spot bonus is increasing.
  • The eye icon over your character’s head when sneaking now only shows when a monster is looking at you. Use it to tell when a monster is building its spot bonus, and get out of sight quickly!
  • Invisibility still makes it so that monsters cannot clearly see you while invisible, unless they are directly adjacent to you. When combined with sneak, it lessens the ability of monsters to start to spot you at far distances, and reduces the bonus that they get at closer distances. The enemy’s spot bonuses gained while invisible will not reveal you as long as you remain invisible, but will hamper your ability to hide if your invisibility is later broken.

In the scenario of sneaking through a room full of monsters to pull a lever when their backs are turned, then re-hiding and continuing past them again:

  • Doing so with just sneak puts you at risk of being spotted the more time spent in front of the monsters; Be careful! The higher your hide skill is, the more of a buffer you have before the monsters see through it!
  • Drinking an invisibility potion to get you to the lever will still raise awareness when in front of the monsters as you sneak by, but not as much. They also cannot spot you (unless you are directly adjacent to them) until after you pull the lever, breaking invisibility. When you re-activate sneak after pulling it, you will have less chance of being detected, as the invisibility helped you sneak in front of them on the way there.
  • For players who prefer a minimal UI, there is an option to turn off all of the new overhead AI awareness icons in the options menu! “ShowMonsterOverheadAwareness”
  • Sneaking characters can now jump and tumble.
  • Because of changes made to Stealth and AI Awareness, a couple of abilities were no longer as useful. We have updated them to better suit the new stealth changes:
    • Shadowdancer: Shadow Training II updated to be: “Activate: For 30 seconds, while sneaking you gain: Full movement speed, +5 Attack bonus to-hit with Sneak Attacks, +2 Sneak Attack dice, +3 Hide, +3 Move Silently.”
    • Hide in Plain Sight (Ranger Feat) has been updated: “You are a master when it comes to hiding in places others think impossible. You gain +1 Hide and +1 Move Silently for every three seconds you stand still, up to +5. While you are sneaking and standing still (for 3 seconds), enemies don’t gain Spot bonuses until they get much closer to you, and the bonuses are smaller.”

Stormreach Harbor Revamp

The Harbor, and its quests & NPCs, have undergone some renovations!

  • Many NPCs (Trainers, Quest givers, etc.) have been relocated.
  • Mari Mosshand is no longer the NPC to seek out for free bags. Instead:
    • Fitzpat the Fence now gives out the free gem bag.
    • Baudry Cartaman now gives players collectible bags.
  • It’s now possible to walk to, as opposed to only being able to swim to, the harbor lighthouse.
  • Added a simple skill-check quest to allow players to help refugees in the Harbor arrival area.
  • Many NPCs have been given grammar lessons.
  • Captain Niles Cage is no longer quite so verbose.
  • Talbron is now a Sorcerer trainer, and Aiden is now a Wizard trainer.
  • While fixing a server crash in Baudry Cartamon’s Interests, we made some other updates to the quest. The quest is now available to play!

Introducing Chest Reroll

Not happy with that last chest pull? It’s now possible to use Astral Shards to re-roll the loot in any non-raid chest.

  • You may re-roll any chest inside a quest/adventure area, but only once per chest per run.
  • You may not use the re-roll feature if you alter your loot list by looting any item from the chest or having an item passed to you in the chest from another party member.
  • Any loot tier bonuses, such as Jewels of Fortune, Half-elf chest blessing, and bonus days will be counted when using a re-roll.
  • While the act of re-rolling does not count towards ransack penalty, you will continue to accrue ransack as you normally would for repeated runs. Re-rolling a ransacked chest will result in the loot quality of the re-roll being equivalent to the standard chest ransack thresholds.
  • Shard cost of the re-roll is based on the level of the chest. This price scaling also takes into account any active loot-boosts.

Daily Dice Prize Updates

Prizes in the daily dice system have been updated!

  • Each roll of the Daily Dice system grants a prize of Experience points in addition to a prize. These points range in amounts based on how well you roll. The amounts bestowed by the Gold roll are higher than the Silver roll. This XP is granted as an item in your inventory that is bound to account. To activate it simply click on the dodecahedron in your inventory and it will bestow the XP to that character.
  • Collectibles and crafting ingredients are no longer a prize type.
  • Fixed several items that were only useful to particular class types, yet were not bound to account.
  • It is now possible to win prizes such as Skill & Ability tomes!

New Skill: Spellcraft

A new skill now exists called Spellcraft. Spellcraft grants 1 point of Spell Power per point of skill to all other spell damage types. Spellcraft is a class skill for Artificers, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Favored Souls, Sorcerers, and Wizards. (Primary and secondary casting classes, but not tertiary caster classes like Paladins and Rangers.) This increase in spell power is reflected in the character sheet tooltip.

General Changes

Classes

  • The Druid Spell: Word of Balance now deals the proper damage (it would sometimes deal too little damage.) Also fixed tooltip to be self-consistent as well as consistent with the damage actually dealt.
  • Barbarian Rage bonuses to Strength and Constitution are now explicitly marked as bonus type Rage, to make it more explicit that it doesn’t stack with the Bard Warchanter Enhancement: Skaldic Rage.
  • Barbarian Rage should no longer spam “d n t” text to the combat log.

Hirelings & Companions

  • Hirelings no longer drop soul stones when warping around.

Skills, Feats, & Abilities

  • All epic feats are now listed under a category for Epic Feats, instead of alphabetically being mixed in with all other feats. Epic Destiny feats, granted at level 26 and 28, are sorted by their related Sphere.
  • Shield Deflection is a new Heroic feat. It requires +8 Base Attack Bonus and General or Tower Shield Proficiency.
    • When actively blocking with any type of Shield you are proficient with, you gain a Competence bonus based on the type of shield to completely ignore Acid, Cold, Electric, and Fire damage:
      • Buckler: 20%
      • Small Shield: 25%
      • Large Shield: 30%
      • Tower Shield: 40%
    • This feat has also been added to the Fighter Class Feat list.
  • Some religious feats that were previously exclusive to Favored Souls (such as Child of Vulkoor and Beloved of the Lord of Blades) are now available to Clerics and Paladins at the cost of a Feat. These feats remain free to Favored Souls. The stats have been improved as well to give more bonuses, and provide those bonuses at earlier levels.
  • Clerics and Paladins now choose a deity to worship at level 1 as a feat, similar to Favored Souls. Old religious enhancements for Clerics, Paladins and Favored Souls such as Unyielding Sovereignty are now freely granted at level 6 as feats.
  • Amaunator is available as a deity for Forgotten Realm characters.
  • Beyond the first Least Dragonmarks, all Dragonmark upgrades are now handled as enhancements, rather than feats. If your character had Dragonmark feats beyond the first, these feats have been removed from your character.
  • The Archer’s Focus feat now works with Thrown Weapons
  • The Doubleshot Destiny feat now properly requires two capped Primal destinies
  • The Monk Feat: Quivering Palm may now be used with Monk weapons
  • The Monk Feat: Quivering Palm now gains DC bonuses from all enhancements, feats, items, and Epic Destiny abilities that increase Sunder DC
  • Offhand attacks will now correctly apply half the stat mod for all ability scores not just strength.
  • Fixed a bug where unarmed (non-monk) and avatar of nature attacks could be executed as fast as you could press the button if moving (unarmed moving attacks are still very fast, they’re just not completely un-capped)
  • Two handed weapons will now correctly apply 1.5 times the stat mod for all relevant ability scores, not just strength.
  • The tooltip for for the Primal Avatar’s Natural Shielding passive was displaying a bonus to defensive rating of 10/20/30. The actual bonus granted is 20/40/60. The tooltip has been updated to reflect this.
  • Pale Master Skeleton Knights now get +500% threat generation.
  • Shadowdancer: Consume’s DC now shows up on the ability and dynamically updates.
  • Season’s Herald:
    • The Winter/Summer buffs are no longer permanently attached to you, even if you stop being a Season’s Herald.
    • Improved SP costs and cooldown for Season’s Herald Word of Balance and Sunburst Spell-Like Abilities.
    • Word of Balance: Fixed it sometimes dealing too little damage, and fixed tooltip to be self-consistent as well as consistent with the damage actually dealt.
  • Fey Visions can now automatically detect Secret Doors up to DC 45.

Items

  • There are many new item effects and higher bonuses to find!
  • Randomly-generated treasure items have been improved to better scale up to player power at all levels of play. These changes only affect new items, and are not retroactive.
    • Since many effects now scale to match player power, several effects have been removed, including Bane/Greater Bane and Burst effects. These effects will still appear on items that were acquired prior to the release of the Shadowfell Conspiracy.
  • Purple and red borders on items are gone. All named items are now blue, while all raid items now use an orange background, regardless of level.
  • New gear will no longer have race restrictions (with the exception of armor rules for Warforged. Warforged, and ONLY warforged, will continue to use Docents).
  • Some items will now have “Masterful Craftsmanship”, which means they have +1 more value worth of effects than is normally found on an item of that level. Masterful Craftsmanship items are unbound, and use a teal item border.
  • XP Potions should now affect all Monster Manual XP rewards. (Note: Tome of Learning XP bonuses DO NOT APPLY to monster manual, only to quests.)
  • The Secret Door Divining Twig has had its caster level increased.
  • New effects have been created, including Improved Vorpal, Energy Absorption, Doubleshot, and +10% Dodge, and more!
  • Dodge bonuses:
    • Dodge bonuses have been doubled in value.
      • Items that had +1% dodge now have +2% dodge.
      • Items that had +2% dodge now have +4% dodge.
      • Items that had +3% dodge now have +6% dodge.
      • Items that had +4% dodge now have +8% dodge.
      • Dodge bonuses of different numerical values no longer stack.
  • Exceptional Bonuses to Skills:
    • Exceptional Bonuses to Skills have been doubled in value.
      • Items that had a +1 Exceptional Bonus to one or more skills now provide a +2 Exceptional Bonus to those skills.
      • Items that had a +2 Exceptional Bonus to one or more skills now provide a +4 Exceptional Bonus to those skills.
      • Items that had a +3 Exceptional Bonus to one or more skills now provide a +6 Exceptional Bonus to those skills.
      • Exceptional Skill bonuses of different numerical values no longer stack.
  • Spell Critical Chance on items has been significantly increased. This is in addition to the 5% Spell Critical chance that is now inherent as part of the “Magical Training” feat that all spellcasting classes automatically receive at level 1.
  • Exceptional Bonuses to Skills have doubled in value, so an item with a +1 Exceptional Bonus to a skill now provides a +2 Exceptional Bonus.
  • Updated Tower of Despair ring set bonuses to work with new enhancements
  • Many new Augments are now available, including:
    • Level 28 Augments:
      • Colorless Augments:
        • +8 Strength
        • +8 Dexterity
        • +8 Constitution
        • +8 Intelligence
        • +8 Wisdom
        • +8 Charisma
      • Red Augments
        • Weapon Damage:
        • Blazing Ruby (In weapon: +2d6 Fire Damage)
        • Boreal Ruby (In weapon: +2d6 Cold Damage)
        • Caustic Ruby (In weapon: +2d6 Acid Damage)
        • Voltaic Ruby (In weapon: +2d6 Electric Damage)
      • Spell Power:
        • Ruby of Combustion 138
        • Ruby of Glaciation 138
        • Ruby of Corrosion 138
        • Ruby of Magnetism 138
        • Ruby of Resonance 138
        • Ruby of Impulse 138
        • Ruby of Radiance 138
        • Ruby of Nullification 138
        • Ruby of Devotion 138
        • Ruby of Reconstruction 138
      • Blue Augments:
        • Sapphire of Natural Armor +8
        • Sapphire of Resistance +8
        • Sapphire of Protection +8
        • Sapphire of Physical Resistance +16
        • Sapphire of False Life +40
      • Yellow Augments:
        • Topaz of Fire Resistance +40
        • Topaz of Cold Resistance +40
        • Topaz of Acid Resistance +40
        • Topaz of Electric Resistance +40
        • Topaz of Sonic Resistance +40
        • Topaz of Power 250
      • Colorless Skill Augments – Level 4
        • Balance +3
        • Bluff +3
        • Concentration +3
        • Diplomacy +3
        • Disable Device +3
        • Haggle +3
        • Heal +3
        • Hide +3
        • Intimidate +3
        • Jump +3
        • Listen +3
        • Move Silently +3
        • Open Lock +3
        • Perform +3
        • Repair +3
        • Search +3
        • Spot +3
        • Swim +3
        • Tumble +3
        • Spellcraft +3
      • Colorless Skill Augments – Level 8
        • Balance +5
        • Bluff +5
        • Concentration +5
        • Diplomacy +5
        • Disable Device +5
        • Haggle +5
        • Heal +5
        • Hide +5
        • Intimidate +5
        • Jump +5
        • Listen +5
        • Move Silently +5
        • Open Lock +5
        • Perform +5
        • Repair +5
        • Search +5
        • Spot +5
        • Swim +5
        • Tumble +5
        • Spellcraft +5
      • Colorless Skill Augments – Level 12
        • Balance +7
        • Bluff +7
        • Concentration +7
        • Diplomacy +7
        • Disable Device +7
        • Haggle +7
        • Heal +7
        • Hide +7
        • Intimidate +7
        • Jump +7
        • Listen +7
        • Move Silently +7
        • Open Lock +7
        • Perform +7
        • Repair +7
        • Search +7
        • Spot +7
        • Swim +7
        • Tumble +7
        • Spellcraft +7
      • Colorless Skill Augments – Level 16
        • Balance +9
        • Bluff +9
        • Concentration +9
        • Diplomacy +9
        • Disable Device +9
        • Haggle +9
        • Heal +9
        • Hide +9
        • Intimidate +9
        • Jump +9
        • Listen +9
        • Move Silently +9
        • Open Lock +9
        • Perform +9
        • Repair +9
        • Search +9
        • Spot +9
        • Swim +9
        • Tumble +9
        • Spellcraft +9
      • Colorless Skill Augments – Level 20
        • Balance +11
        • Bluff +11
        • Concentration +11
        • Diplomacy +11
        • Disable Device +11
        • Haggle +11
        • Heal +11
        • Hide +11
        • Intimidate +11
        • Jump +11
        • Listen +11
        • Move Silently +11
        • Open Lock +11
        • Perform +11
        • Repair +11
        • Search +11
        • Spot +11
        • Swim +11
        • Tumble +11
        • Spellcraft +11
      • Colorless Skill Augments – Level 24
        • Balance +13
        • Bluff +13
        • Concentration +13
        • Diplomacy +13
        • Disable Device +13
        • Haggle +13
        • Heal +13
        • Hide +13
        • Intimidate +13
        • Jump +13
        • Listen +13
        • Move Silently +13
        • Open Lock +13
        • Perform +13
        • Repair +13
        • Search +13
        • Spot +13
        • Swim +13
        • Tumble +13
        • Spellcraft +13
      • Colorless Skill Augments – Level 28
        • Balance +15
        • Bluff +15
        • Concentration +15
        • Diplomacy +15
        • Disable Device +15
        • Haggle +15
        • Heal +15
        • Hide +15
        • Intimidate +15
        • Jump +15
        • Listen +15
        • Move Silently +15
        • Open Lock +15
        • Perform +15
        • Repair +15
        • Search +15
        • Spot +15
        • Swim +15
        • Tumble +15
        • Spellcraft +15

Quests and Adventure Areas

  • The quest chain “A Man Named Baudry Cartamon” is once again available!
  • You now get a Daily Bonus of 20% experience the first time you play each quest, every day.
  • Quest Experience no longer deprecates down permanently for repeatedly playing it. Instead Quest Experience now functions similar to chest ransack mechanics:
    • Normally each time you repeat a quest, the amount of experience the quest grants decreases. This remains true as of Update 19, although the curve of how much XP deprecates after how many runs as been adjusted. For each repetition of the same quest, the deprecation is 20%.
    • Quest XP deprecation from repetition now bottoms out at 20% instead of 10%.
    • In 18 hours, the quest will adjust the XP back up by 50%.
    • The Quest XP report panel now updates to reflect what your current bonus/ransack amounts are.
    • Typing /ransack into your Chat Log will show you the ransack levels of the quests that you’ve played.
  • Secret Doors have been rebalanced to better scale across the full range of the DDO content. The DCs needed to find a secret door with a Search check has been lowered in the earlier level ranges, but remain roughly the same in the higher level ranges. Associated spells and skills related to finding secret doors have been rebalanced in relation to the new difficulty curve. Items and spell descriptions have been updated to indicate how high of a DC they are able to detect.
  • A number of stuck spots have been fixed in House Phiarlan, The Underdark, Druid’s Deep, and the Harbor.
  • The level range for U18 Campaign System is now only level 15 – 16
  • Gather party objectives:
    • All gather party objectives now no longer require hirelings to be present
    • Fixed the delay that used to occur before the game recognized that all players were present
  • Quest givers for shorter quests will give you rewards instead of gold now. More loot woo!
  • The difficulty curve of trap search, spot, and disable device DCs has been adjusted to reflect the full level range of the game up to the level cap. Lower level DCs are no longer so harsh, and higher level DCs are no longer so easy. The difference in DC between quest difficulties (normal, hard, elite, epic) have likewise been adjusted.
  • Some breakable doors stopped triggering NPCs, altars, etc from spawning in the rooms beyond them. This should now be fixed. (Main offender: The Lords of Dust)
  • Poison damage in overhead combat text now displays with an icon to indicate that the damage is poison-based rather than looking as if it were untyped.
  • “Demolition Charges” in applicable quests can now be placed faster by Rogues with the Improved Traps enhancement.
  • The party scaling curve has been extended to include the Epic level of the game. Melee characters, Clerics, and non-gold seal hirelings have had their scaling nudged slightly to better reflect their contribution strengths at Epic levels.
  • Cleaned up an issue where several spells, item effects, and enhancements were causing the Dungeon Master to lose his mind and randomly trigger parts of the dungeon either improperly or prematurely (e.g. Craetos, Blockade Buster, etc.)

Challenges

  • Eveningstar Challenge ingredients are now Bound to Account instead of Bound to Character.

Delirium

  • White insanity effects have returned to the usual red insanity.

Eveningstar

  • The Eveningstar Spirit Binder now once again binds you to Eveningstar (and not Wheloon.)

Gianthold

  • Discovering all explorer locations now removes the Fog of War from the map.

Kobold Assault

  • Fixed an issue that could prevent quest completion.

Servants of the Overlord

  • Flamefang should now spawn properly.

In-game Shopping & DDO Store Shopping

  • Fixed the filtering for Tomes of Epic Learning in the DDO Store.

Skills, Feats, & Abilities

  • The stealth system has received a significant overhaul, which impacts various game systems including stealth, invisibility, detection, blind attacks, noises, and the visual and auditory cues that players get from these systems. Major work has been done to improve monster behavior and rework visual feedback, including:
    • The “eye level” trying to show light level over a sneaking player’s head has been removed. One eye may appear over your character, indicating that a monster is looking at you while you are sneaking. The longer it looks at you, the higher its spot bonus gets. If you hide/sneak in front of monsters for too long, they will eventually see you!
    • “Red footsteps” now only appear when a monster actually hears you while you are sneaking. If you see the “red splash”, your position has been given away!
  • Extra Shot is now named Doubleshot to be consistent with Doublestrike.

Monster Manual

  • The Monster Manuals have been updated to recognize monsters from Updates 17 through Update 19.

Monsters

  • New monsters have arrived in the DDO ecosystem, including Owlbears (and their delicious pelts), Howlers (and their somewhat less desirable pelts), Pseudodragons, Harpies, Griffins, Satyrs, Forgotten Realms-specific Orcs, and more!
  • Performance improvements have been made to reduce AI-related lag and frame rate issues, particularly in large group and raiding situations.
  • More work has been done to prevent monsters from sliding while they have crowd control effects on them!
  • Fixed a bug where dwarves with the ranged attacker movement style would try to melee if you got close, yet be too far away to actually hit with their stubby arms. Also fixed a bug where orcs and half-orcs thought they also had stubby arms, so they were also affected by the same bug.
  • Fixed a bug where some monsters would freeze and be unable to even do ranged attacks or cast spells at their target if the target couldn’t be walked to. Also fixed lag and slow behavior associated with the monsters who couldn’t handle their target being un-reachable.
  • When blinded, Monsters now act a bit more like you would expect a blinded creature to.
  • Fixed an issue where some debug text meant to help designers was still visible in monster action text.

Spells

  • The spell Haste now provides a +1% Dodge bonus instead of +1 Armor Class.
  • Dispel Magic, Greater Dispel Magic, and Mordenkainen’s Disjuction tool tips now explain how they work on Spell Wards.
  • Detect Secret Doors now allows you to find secret doors with a DC of 5 or less. This increases by 3 for every two caster levels.
  • True Seeing has been updated: “You confer on the subject the ability to see things as they actually are. This allows the target to find secret doors that have a DC of 30 or less, see the exact location of creatures hidden by blur or displacement effects, and see invisible creatures or objects normally.”

UI Changes

  • You can now once again easily click on the chat window type box.
  • Fixed an issue in the LFM where the “public” option was colliding with the “Hide Content I Don’t Own” button, preventing it from working.

Other

  • Guild sizes should update properly now.
  • There is now a trap making station in Eveningstar near the Rogue Trainer.
  • Fixed a crashing issue that could happen during inventory over flow.

Known Issues

  • For a listing of our current Known Issues, click here!

I am certainly looking forward to the new DDO game changes. Make sure to read up on everything that has changed because there are a ton of changes in this new expansion, Shadowfell Consipracy, for Dungeons and Dragons Online.

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